


Red Death - Fathers

by Nathaniel_Quietly



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, The Flash (Comics)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-02 20:55:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16312550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nathaniel_Quietly/pseuds/Nathaniel_Quietly
Summary: So for those who havent heard, October is here and we at DC Animated Adventures are teaming up with Nazario Designs to giveaway the complete Batman: The Animated Series on DVD! Chris will draw a villain a day and you just write a short 400-500 word story about that character and you're entered! That simple!Lance and I decided that we wanted to play along as well, even though we're not qualified to win (as we are putting on the contest). Here's my entry for today, the fifth of The Dark Knights: Red Death. (Check outThe DCAA Facebookfor more information.)





	Red Death - Fathers

When he lost Dick to a hail of Two-face’s bullets, he was done. He realized how selfish, how entitled he’d been, putting a child into the kind of danger he faced every night. Dick had shared his grief, yes, but not his passion, his commitment to justice. It had been a game for him, a lark, where criminal’s shoulders were just another trapeze to spring from. Where guns were just another performance without a net. He had tried to warn the boy, as the pistols were pulled, as triggers were depressed. But it had been too late. He wasn’t fast enough.

He’d managed to stay a solo act for years. The bruises and the gunshot wounds were his alone to suffer, and he suffered them gladly, knowing the only danger was to himself. The Commissioner's daughter had tried to put on a Mask once, but he had discouraged her with a few well placed threats towards her father. For her own good, naturally.  
Then came the night he caught Jason Todd boosting the tires off the Batmobile. Dent--Two-Face, again--had taken Jason’s father, and for the first time since he’d seen the terrifying resolution in young Grayson’s eyes, he felt kinship to another person. He took Jason into his care, trained him harder and harsher than anything the previous sidekick had ever undergone. He would not lose a second boy in his crusade. He would not lose another son.

All for naught. Jason was a fighter, a scrapper; he never understood the subtle inflections of tone and body that indicated a lie, nor developed the detective skills required to ferret out a trap. He was beaten to death by the Joker, his corpse blown up by a homemade bomb in a final act of vindictive desecration. He hunted the fiend down, and broke his body in kind; would have killed him, if the Boy Scout hadn’t interfered. Faster than a speeding bullet, that’s what they said about the alien. Would that he could match that speed.

He’d barely put Jason in the ground when Tim Drake knocked on the mansion’s door, practically blackmailing him into letting another boy put on the Mask. He knew Drake wasn’t ready, but he was so lost in grief he tried anyway. 

This time it was Two-Face again. “The Clown cheated me out of a matching pair,” he’d said, standing over Tim’s smoldering body. He’d knocked out half of Harvey’s teeth with the first punch, and broke half the bones in his body afterwards. Exactly half; he took his time, and counted. He thought Dent would appreciate the symmetry.  
Standing over the graves of the boys he had lost, he knew. He’d never had enough speed. He was only a man. A man who could not keep his children safe. He needed...he needed to be faster.

Yes. He’d go to Barry. Barry would understand. 

After all, he was a father too.


End file.
